


Not an Idiot

by RooBadley



Series: Rhythm, Meter, Structure [1]
Category: Carry On Series - Rainbow Rowell, Simon Snow & Related Fandoms
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Everything is Beautiful and Nothing Hurts, Lets get this boy some therapy!, M/M, POV Alternating, Romantic Fluff, University, We go rogue post Carry On
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-10
Updated: 2020-09-21
Packaged: 2021-03-06 19:13:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 18,388
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26383942
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RooBadley/pseuds/RooBadley
Summary: Simon Snow likes weapons. They’re reliable. They do what you ask of them. Plus, anything can be a weapon if you’re creative enough: cricket bat, butter knife, therapy.Therapy has turned out to be Simon’s most reliable weapon. The best tool in his arsenal to fight back The Dark Creatures Within and it’s bloody well working. It worked better than the Sword of Mages ever did because the skills he learns in therapy won’t abandon him just because he doesn’t have his magic anymore. Did he really lose his magic, though? Magic is just words, right? And Simon still has words. He’s learning to use them.A canon divergent post-Carry On world where Simon sticks with therapy and discovers writing helps him process his trauma. Good things happen. Not a lot of rising action, but there’s poetry and cussing and snogging and late night arguments about feminist literature and self-care face masks.
Relationships: Tyrannus Basilton "Baz" Pitch/Simon Snow
Series: Rhythm, Meter, Structure [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1977055
Comments: 95
Kudos: 158





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I have a lot to say about therapy and also how educational systems only reward one very particular kind of intelligence. 
> 
> Also, the world has gone mental. I needed something comforting in among the madness so I started writing. This happened. May these adorable dummies give you some comfort too.

**Baz**

Simon Snow is _not_ an idiot. 

Not by a long shot. 

I spent most of my youth, _our youth_ , telling him he was an idiot. I told anyone who would listen he was an idiot. But he never was, he never has been. It was, as Simon would put it, a “reaction formation behavior”. I took my true feelings (love, adoration, desire) and converted them into something more socially acceptable (hate, pure bile-filled hate). 

_Reaction formation_ is the technical word for it. He learned that from his therapist.

Therapy has done wonders for Simon, thank Crowley. That whole first summer after we moved to London was strange. Strained. Simon was trying to do too much all at once. Trying to be a boyfriend (my boyfriend. My terrible boyfriend), trying to be an independent adult, trying to relearn how to be normal (although he’s not a Normal, not really). 

The trying nearly killed him.

At first Simon balked at the idea of therapy. He said there was nothing wrong with him. He said he wasn’t broken, nearly screamed it in my face one day. 

After a few sessions, though, Simon started to see some results. So, he kept with it. Kept his appointments diligently, taking notes in a little notebook as they talked so he could remember all his therapist’s suggestions. It was extremely endearing to see how seriously he took it. 

Then everything changed. Well, not everything, Simon was still the same person at his core: kind, heroic, fiercely protective. All the shitty stuff began to change. The sadness. The depression. The not eating, then the eating too much. The laying-on-the-sofa-for-hours-watching-crap-tv. The drinking. All of that changed. There wasn’t some miraculous moment where everything snapped into place, but the therapy seemed to be working. _Simon_ seemed to be working. Functional. More content in himself.

He started making small changes. He’d follow a schedule during the day, trying to get up at the same time, eat at the same time. He started learning how to cook, simple things mostly. Lots of pasta dishes. So many carbs.

Then he started journaling on a suggestion from his therapist. He writes in a spiral notebook he keeps tucked under the mattress. He started practicing deep breathing techniques and learned how to calm himself down when he got worked up. In the course of a month he went from reliably knocking someone or something over with his wings and tail at least once a day, to learning how to control them, how to get them to do what he wants. 

Another change is that he reads. He reads a lot. 

Simon Snow reads a _lot_.

“They’re an escape,” he said once, sheepishly, as he emptied several novels from his backpack onto the growing stacks piled against the walls. He’d been by the local Oxfam Bookshop again. “I--I can escape into someone else’s life. It--it--I get to live their life for a while. Feel what they feel. And that makes me feel--feel less alone I guess,” he ended with a shrug. 

He was never much of a reader when we were at Watford and I mocked him fairly mercilessly for that. Now I realize that was mostly because the care homes he came from didn’t have a lot of books. Sometimes they didn’t have any books. He says the summer after 4th year, a summer I spent tearing through our family’s library, he spent in a care home that had 3 books total. Two bibles and a Dr Seuss. Cruel irony it was a copy of Oh the Places You’ll Go! 

Oh the places he didn’t.

It wasn’t any better when he was at Watford though, it’s not like he could get stuck into a good book there. Thanks to the fucking Mage (long may he rot) and his reforms, by the end there was barely anything in the library worth checking out. A bunch of bland Victorian children’s stories? No, thank you. So, it’s not surprising Simon wasn’t ever much of a reader. 

He’s sure made up for it this last year though. I keep bringing boxes of books back to London anytime I visit my family. His face lights up like it’s Christmas whenever I do. He tears through them hungrily. Recently I’ve started buying books for him online and having them delivered to my family’s house or to Fiona’s. Used books, of course, I don’t want him to know I’m buying them. I know he’d only balk and call it charity. So I sneak them into his flat and hide them in plain sight. 

Simon uses the library at his Uni. Chomsky, he uses the library at _my_ Uni. It’s actually quite endearing. He walks me there under the pretenses of keeping me company and then immediately wanders into the stacks only to reappear later with at least 5 books in his arms. It’s mostly dusty old mathematics and political science books there, but he keeps managing to find interesting things. He stalks charity shops for his favorite authors and texts. Genre doesn’t so much matter to him. He consumes books the way he used to consume sour cherry scones: voraciously. As if he’ll never be full of words.

It makes perverse sense. Simon emptied his magic out into the world. All those words. All that potential. He filled the hole that was the Humdrum and created a hole in himself. I wonder if he’ll ever be full. 

Tonight we’re both doing coursework. He’s leaning up against the far arm of the sofa so his wings can drape over the back. His feet, in an obnoxious pair of thick grey socks, are in my lap. They wiggle whenever he gets to a particularly interesting passage in the text he’s working his way through. I know because he’ll immediately pull the pencil from where it’s tucked behind his ear and jot notes in the margins of the book. Sometimes he puts a sticky note on the edge of the page and scribbles something there. I bought him the sticky notes. Before them he’d been dog-earing the pages he wanted to mark, like some kind of wild animal. 

He’s working through a Chimamanda Ngozi Adichi novel tonight for his modern world literature course. He hasn’t decided on a course of study yet, he’s taking a lot of different courses to see what sticks, but we both know what sticks. Words stick. Words are his thing now. Not spoken, still not spoken, but written. 

Who would have guessed it would be words?

Maybe I should have. Nobody loved magic like Simon and what’s magic other than words? 

So yeah, Simon Snow is not an idiot. He never was. A bit of a mess and ball full of trauma? Crowley, yes. But not an idiot. Never an idiot.

  
  


**Penny**

Simon Snow is an idiot. 

He’s got a spine like an iron rod and dogged determination, but he lacks any self-confidence. And that makes him a complete and total idiot. 

His lack of confidence isn’t his fault. He never had the chance to show what he could do at Watford. I mean, _physically_ he showed what he could do all the time, he took on dragons and worsegers and Goblins courageously, but he was only ever allowed to be a weapon. The Mage wanted him for his power, so that’s the only positive reinforcement Simon ever received. 

Of course he was strong. He was the chosen one. But he was also smart. Nowhere close to myself (or Baz), but I’m wondering more these days if that’s a part of the problem. Maybe _we’re_ part of the problem. 

When your best friend and your roommate are the intellectual powerhouses Baz and I are it’s easy to feel like a pillock. But Simon was always a fast thinker and a quick study. He learned how to fight with a sword at the age of 11, for snake’s sake! Who does that? (Also, Nicks and Slick, who gives a sword to an 11 year old!?)

Simon never had a chance at Watford, not at being a student. He was too busy being swept away by the Mage for some ridiculous escapade or another, coming back too exhausted or wounded to study and too distracted by whatever the next mission might be. 

Our mistake was thinking the Mage brought Simon to Watford to be a student. Simon was there because it was easier to control him that way. Watford was nothing more than a glorified storage locker for a weapon.

But Simon was always more than that, even if he doesn’t think so. He’s too hard on himself. Too critical. He thinks his academic failings at Watford mean he’s an idiot. He’s wrong. 

It was like grading a tsunami on its ability to bake a pie. If being able to bake a pie is the only standard for brilliance then of course the tsunami will feel like an idiot. 

Actually, now that I think about it it’s more like judging a fully competent and capable baker on their ability to bake a pie, but someone keeps whacking the oven up to gas mark 9 and refusing to give him a recipe _and_ forcing him to leave the kitchen every 5 minutes _and_ also there are _monsters_ trying to _kill him_ while he bakes. 

Simon never stood a chance. 

I walk through the living room where Simon and Baz are sitting on the sofa, both focused on their work. They’re adorable together and _I will never ever tell them that_. 

“Tea, boys?” I ask, heading to the kitchen. Baz smiles as I walk past. Evidently Simon hasn’t heard me, he’s still scanning his page, brow furrowed. 

“I’ll help, Bunce. I need the stretch break,” Baz says, slipping Simon’s feet from his lap and depositing them unceremoniously on the sofa where he’d just been sitting. Simon doesn't seem to notice.

  
  


**Simon**

Maybe I’m not an idiot. It surprises me to find I’m not an absolute rubbish student. Penny and Baz keep telling me I’m actually doing quite well. But they have to say that. They’re my best friends and they have to be supportive. 

Where are they? Wasn’t Baz just in here? Weren’t my feet just in his lap? I know I get lost when I read. I tend to blink out just like I used to when I was going off, except this kind of blinking out is more of a “totally absorbed in another person’s words” kind of blinking out. Nobody gets hurt when I blink out now. Except me. 

Sometimes these books just ruin me. This one in particular. The heartbreak, the loss, the two characters never being in the same place at the same time for one another. It’s cutting a little close to the bone, tonight. I need a break. 

I put a bookmark in my book. Baz bought me these fancy little silver page markers that are ridiculously posh and clever and entirely the kind of present he would give. Before that I’d always dog-eared the page to mark my place but he called that “uncivilized”. I told him I’d show him uncivilized and then snogged him until he turned wobbly like jelly. 

That was a good night.

I hear voices in the kitchen. Ah. Tea.

“Any chance there are biscuits?” I ask through a yawn as I join Baz and Penny. There’s barely enough room for the three of us in our tiny kitchen.

Baz rummages in a cupboard and retrieves two packages. I don’t know if he’s trying to give me a choice or insult me by saying I eat too many biscuits. Jokes on him, it’s impossible to eat too many biscuits.

“He’s emerged!” Penny says loudly. “Must be a good book, the world could have crumbled around you and I don’t think you’d have noticed.”

“No, I noticed the last time the world crumbled around me. My therapist says I remember it remarkably clearly,” I snort out a laugh and so do Penny and Baz. 

This is a thing we do now. We joke about our shared trauma. My therapist says it’s not the best way to deal with a traumatic experience, but she doesn’t know everything. Lots of things, sure, but not everything. I know that sometimes laughing helps. It makes the big bad things seem smaller. Everything is less intimidating when you can laugh at it. 

“How’s your coursework going?” Penny asks neither of us in particular. Her dark hair is piled on top of her head in a messy bun, frizzing out in every direction. I know Baz is dying to deep condition it for her. He admitted as much once when we’d had a bit too much to drink at the pub. 

“S’alright,” I say, rubbing the back of my neck. “Don’t have to be finished with this novel for another week. It feels good to be ahead of things for once,” I answer. Penny looks at me amazed. She often does that now. I guess she’s not used to me being a student. She’s used to Chosen One Simon. That Simon could never finish an assignment because he was always getting pulled away to kill or maim something.

“I have at least another 2 hours of revision tonight. I’m so ready for a long weekend,” Penny sighs into her tea. We’re all shattered. We’ll get a long weekend for the bank holiday in a few weeks, but I don’t know how we’ll make it that long. Penny sighs again, wearily. I echo her sigh and then the only sounds are of us blowing on our tea and Baz’s teaspoon clanking around in his mug. 

He is putting an ungodly amount of sugar in his tea. How does he stomach it? He continues spooning as I hand Penny a biscuit. We share a look of disgust. 

“You’ll be up all night at that rate,” I try to arch an eyebrow at him, but I can tell I look stupid when I do it. I don’t have Baz’s skill for eyebrow contortion. 

He stirs his tea. I can’t imagine all that sugar will dissolve. Surely his last sip will be a congealed blob of sweetness. “I have a paper to finish tonight, Snow. Being up all night is the point.”

“I can think of better reasons to be up all night,” I counter, taking a long, loud slurp of my tea, staring him down. It’s too hot and it burns the roof of my mouth and tongue, but it’s worth it. He taps his teaspoon against the side of his mug loudly and holds eye contact with me before slowly sliding the spoon into his mouth and sucking it clean.

“Nicks and Slick, you two! That’s gross and unnecessary,” Penny grimaces and shoves past us, a little more roughly than necessary. “Thank you for making me feel uncomfortable in my own home!”

I shouldn’t laugh as she stomps away, I shouldn’t. 

But I do. 

\----

Baz is clacking away on his laptop at the desk in my room while I write in my notebook. We spend a lot of evenings like this, him working at the desk while I belly flop onto the bed to do my work there. It’s easier on my wings to work on the bed. And it’s easier on my heart to have him here. 

I’ve been writing a lot lately, every evening in fact. It was my therapist’s suggestion, to get it all OUT and onto some paper. At first it was nonsense, stream-of-consciousness garbage. I’d write down a single word, then scratch it out, then write it again, sometimes filling whole pages with just one word repeated over and over again: Unfair. Why. Ebb. Lost. Scared. Magic. Normal. 

Then I started making lists. I wrote down all the lists I’d only ever kept in my head. My Top Tens. 

Top Ten Things I Like About This Flat. 

Top Ten Takeaways within Walking Distance. 

Top Ten Sounds Baz Makes in his Sleep. 

At some point it turned into something more. I started describing my feelings. I’d write about what happened that night in the White Chapel. I’d turn the night over and over again in my mind, trying to find just the right words to describe how it felt. Flying, fighting, pouring out my magic, killing the Mage. I’d write and rewrite and then write some more. 

Somehow it helped. I stopped huffing out my frustrations at anyone who looked at me, stopped slamming my shoulder into door jambs or drinking too much cider and took it out on the page. 

Writing feels good. It feels like progress. It feels like pouring something out of myself that wasn't really mine to begin with. So, that is to say, it feels oddly familiar.

Tonight I’m writing about the night we shared my magic at the top of Mummer’s. I close my eyes and feel it all come back to me as if I’m there again. Baz’s blissed out face, his glazed over grey eyes. The taught lines of his neck as he craned his head to look at the stars. His manic giggle. I’ve written that moment eight times now, revisiting it, trying to get it just right. I’m nearly there. It’s almost perfect on the page. 

It’s always perfect in my memory.

I’ve spent so much of my life trying to actively not think about things. I’m starting to wonder if maybe that’s because I remember everything too vividly, in too much detail. Maybe it’s too much for my brain to handle and so it pushes all that detail behind a door marked ‘Do Not Enter’ and locks it shut. 

Speaking is still...difficult. But using my words when I’m writing? That’s coming to be easier every day. Writing is easier than talking and that counts, right? I feel like that counts as using my words. 

Plus, Baz helped me download a dictionary and thesaurus app on my phone. (“Thesaurus?” I said. “Isn’t that your first name?” He pushed me, laughing, off the bed when I said it.) I use it to help me find the right words, to help me figure out what I’m trying to say when I’m writing. 

I startle back to reality as Baz puts a cold hand on my ankle. He’s leaned back over the desk chair to look at me. 

“Alright, love?” he whispers, smiling softly. I close my notebook. 

“Alright, Baz,” I smile, tucking my notebook under the mattress again and rolling closer to where he’s sitting. “Just writing.”

“It’s all words with you lately, Snow. I’m beginning to feel a bit jealous of your relationship with the alphabet,” half his mouth quirks into a smile. 

“Feel like you don’t get enough attention?” I reach my arm out towards him, he gets the hint and swivels around in the chair, takes my hand in his own. Long cold fingers weaving between mine. 

“Never enough attention,” he half pouts half snarls, shaking his head. He can be a real brat sometimes. But, I find I don’t really mind.

“How’s the essay going?” I say at the same time he closes the lid of his laptop. 

“Finished,” he’s getting up from the chair, closing the space between us. He stands there for a moment, holding my hand in his, looking down at me. I realize I’ve taken my lower lip between my teeth and am worrying it there as I hold his gaze. 

He’s lovely. So unbelievably lovely. It’s astounding how outside of Watford he looks exactly the same and also completely changed. It’s like a weight has lifted from him. He’s more vibrant, more free. He’s come into himself. I wonder if I’m the same way, if I am somehow changed and also exactly the same. 

My tail takes that moment to wind it’s way up towards Baz’s wrist and I realize I’m an idiot for wondering. I have wings and a bloody tail. Of course I’m completely changed. 

Baz raises an eyebrow as my tail coils around his waist and begins to pull him down to the bed. 

“Snow?” he says archly. 

“The tail wants what the tail wants!” I shrug, trying to sound innocent, pretending I’m not controlling it’s every move. I catch him in my arms just as he begins to lose balance. He falls into me and snorts out a laugh. 

“And what, exactly, does _‘the tail’_ want, Simon?” 

“Oh, you know...things,” I say, I still have trouble asking for what I want sometimes. I get overwhelmed very easily. I don’t know if that’s my control issues or just the fact I’m with Baz. 

Fucking _Baz_. He overwhelms me. He overwhelms me when he eats. He overwhelms me when he wears jeans or pulls his hair up into a bun while he studies. He overwhelms me when he’s fucking asleep. He’s overwhelming by nature. 

“The tail wants things? _Things_? Crowley, Snow, you sure have a way with words. You--” I cover his mouth with mine before he can continue his snarky tirade. Kissing continues to be one of the most efficient ways of shutting Baz right up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The tail wants things, yo. The tail wants things.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Simon decides on a course of study, much to Penny and Baz's surprise. Frank conversations around sex occur without any actual descriptions of sex. (sorry?)

**Baz**

“I’ve decided on a course of study,” Simon announces, matter of factly. We’ve just finished watching a documentary I couldn’t really tell you anything about, but which Bunce insisted we sit through. 

“And?” Penny starts. She catches my eye from across the room as we wait patiently for Simon to continue. This has been a long time coming. 

“Yes, well. You know--um--I--” Simon is stammering. I squeeze his hand in mine, just once, and watch as he closes his eyes and takes a deep breath. Slowly in, slowly out. Then his eyes open and it’s passed. “I’d like to study Literature and Creative Writing. I mean, I am. I’ve already sorted it all out. I’m doing it.”

There's silence as we take it all in. Simon Snow, one of the worst students Watford has ever known has just declared he’ll be studying Literature and Creative Writing.

It’ll be a challenge, but I’ve never known him to back away from a challenge. Frankly, I’m surprised he didn’t announce it while dramatically standing astride the sofa with his chin jutted out.

Literature and Creative Writing. The reading part isn’t all that shocking, but the writing? I knew he journaled on the advice of his therapist, but I didn’t realize he _wrote._ Does he write? _What_ does he write? _  
_

“Crowley, Simon…” Penny says quietly.

“My brilliant, talented, terrible boyfriend,” I smile at him. Simon’s face breaks out into one of those incredible surface-of-the-sun smiles and he flushes from neck to forehead. 

“How’d you decide, Simon?” Penny asks from her perch on the overstuffed armchair. Simon rubs roughly at the back of his neck.

I know him well enough to read his face. He’s scared. He hates making choices and he’s always terrified to defend them. It doesn’t take a therapist to figure out why. He was a Chosen One who had everything chosen for him: the food he ate, the clothes he wore, when he woke up, where he went and what he killed when he got there. It makes sense that having some autonomy over his life would be utterly terrifying. 

Justifying his choices scares him senseless. Even when he’s justifying them to the two people who love him most in the world. 

“Well, I just--I love words,” he shrugs. And it’s not one of those teenage Simon shrugs that is meant to communicate the end of a conversation, this is the sweet shrug of someone feeling embarrassed for a thing they love. “There’s magic in words. I mean, I know there’s **_magic_ ** in words, I know that’s how your magic works. I mean _magic_ , you know, the way words can transform you, take you somewhere, change you. I guess it’s that way with **magic** too, really” he’s starting to ramble a bit. He’s a beautiful mess. I love him so much. 

“I’m proud of you, Simon,” I whisper, squeezing his hand again. “And I know what you mean. There’s magic in words.”

He smiles back, sheepishly, but his eyes are twinkling. 

“Absolutely. We’re both proud of you,” Penny says emphatically, reaching out to nudge Simon’s shoulder by way of approval. “And what, exactly, will you be creatively writing?” 

Simon licks his lips and looks nervously down at the floor. 

“Don’t laugh,” he mumbles. Penny and I share a look. What is this beautiful fool about to admit?

“You have to promise you won’t laugh. You have to say it,” he’s staring at us now, his blue eyes pleading. 

“We promise,” Penny and I manage to say at the same time. Simon takes a deep breath as if he’s about to admit some deep dark secret. Which, perhaps he is, I don’t know. 

“Poetry,” he says, quietly, and then again a bit louder. “I write poetry.” 

Penny and I sit there in stunned silence. Poetry?

The Chosen One, the Greatest Mage, the greatest threat and weapon known to the World of Mages writes...poetry. 

And why the fuck shouldn’t he?

I reach out and run my hand gently down the side of Simon’s face. 

“Of course you do, Simon,” I whisper. “You are poetry.” 

His eyes are twinkling. We’re smiling back and forth like a couple of idiots. 

“Alright, then, let’s hear some of it,” Penny chirps.

“Umm--I don’t--I’m not sure if--” and we’ve lost him, he’s sputtering, nervous, and suddenly too scared to continue. He’s rubbing at the back of his neck and pulling at his curls at the same time. That’s Simon’s one-two punch of manifested anxiety.

“It’s alright, love, you don’t have to share anything if you don’t want to,” I try to comfort him. I rub his knee softly. 

“But surely you know you’ll have to read your work aloud at some point, right Simon?” I shoot Penny a look when she says it. I hope she can read how loudly my eyes are shouting “NOT HELPFUL” at her. Penny’s love is always so pushy. So forceful. She’ll love Simon right into a catastrophe with all her good intentions. 

“Yeah, Pen, I get that. I’ve no trouble sharing with other people. I--er--I’ve been to a couple open mic poetry nights already.” 

“You _what_?!” I blurt before I can catch myself. Simon flushes and looks guilty. 

“I should have told you, but--I just--I needed to be sure it was something I could do. I wanted to be _sure_ ,” he says it so earnestly it nearly breaks my heart. Simon, my brave, daring, courageous fuck of a boyfriend writes secret poetry and sneaks off to readings to bare his soul to a room full of strangers. 

“I’m proud of you, love,” I whisper to him. It’s the second time I’ve said it tonight. I hope he hears me. Penny is still staring, her mouth hanging open just a bit. 

“Pen, shut your gob,” Simon laughs, reaching over and chucking her under the chin lightly. She shakes a bit before setting herself to rights. 

“I’m just... _great snakes_ , Simon! It’s surprising, is all!” She laughs, taking off her glasses and rubbing at the bridge of her nose. 

“I know. I’m not sure it’s the future anyone expected for me,” he says laughing to himself. “But that’s my whole life now, right? Fuck, I mean...the fact I’m still alive, the wings, the tail, the lost magic, the handsome vampire boyfriend,” he smiles at me and my poor undead heart tries to flutter. Enough of this. 

I stand, grabbing Simon around the waist, hauling him up to me, trying to sling him over my shoulder as he laughs and protests. Penny spelled his wings away nice and tight earlier, otherwise I’d never be able to do this without him destroying the living room. 

“Well, Bunce, we bid you goodnight. I have to take my handsome poet boyfriend to bed now,” I say, manhandling Simon down the hallway as he laughs and fights back playfully. From the living room I hear Penny grumbling to herself about how disgusting we are.

**Simon**

Baz is half carrying me, half shoving me down the hall to my bedroom. I love when he gets like this, playful and sweet. It was a surprise to learn this is part of his personality. It used to be all sarcasm and shittiness, but now with me and Penny he’s soft. He’s tender. I like it so much. It contrasts against his cold, posh exterior. 

Once we’re finally in my room he closes the door behind us, clutches at the front of my shirt and pulls me close. 

“Simon Snow...the poet...” he whispers softly. His face nuzzling against mine.

“Yes, Baz?” I whisper, leaning into his cold touch. 

“You are a marvel,” he kisses my forehead and my knees go weak. “An absolute wonder,” he’s kissing my cheek, my neck, my jaw as he speaks. He’s kissing me everywhere but my mouth. I’m helpless to do anything but hold onto him and try to survive his affection. “You surprise me every day, Simon Snow. Every single day.” 

“Baz--I--I--” my words are failing me. They always fail me when I need them. They always bloody have. That’s the reason writing works. I can sit with a thought, work on it, piece it together over time. 

I can’t use my words the way Baz can. I can’t speak my feelings in the moment. How do I tell him I burn for him? My heart aches just to look at him. How do I tell him what he means to me? If I had a week and a thesaurus I’d probably still come up short, but I’d be able to get something out. Anything more than this fumbling and stuttering. I have to find a way to show him what he _means_. 

“Baz, just fucking _kiss me_ already!”

He pulls back and arches an eyebrow at me. 

“And where exactly, Snow, would you like to be kissed?” he rakes his hands down my torso before tracing cool fingers along the waistband of my trousers. 

“You berk,” I say, grabbing the back of his head and closing the space between our mouths. 

It’s been more than a year that we’ve been doing this. Being terrible boyfriends. In all that time I still haven’t gotten over kissing him. 

Kissing Baz is still magic. That and words are the only magic I have left. 

So, quite a lot of magic really. More than enough for a lifetime. More than enough to make up for what I lost. 

**Baz**

We lay in bed together afterwards, our limbs tangled. I mentally thank his therapist for helping us get to a place where we can do this. _Be together_. We would have gotten here eventually, I suppose, but thank snakes we got here sooner rather than later. There’s only so much sad wanking in a shared bathroom one can do before questioning their life choices. 

His therapist specializes in treating Mages, but she’s well versed and extremely open. “Sex positive” were her words. She’s American. Americans are always more open to talking about sex. Excessively so. 

I hadn’t meant to overhear Simon and his therapist that day. I’d always made a point of being out when he had his sessions. He deserves that privacy. I’d do our shopping or go to the library or Fiona’s. Eventually Simon caught on to my routine and insisted I stay. He said he felt bad he was running me out, which is ridiculous because this isn’t even my flat (although it completely is. Bunce even insists I pay the entire water and heating bill due to my “excessively long, scalding hot showers” and I don’t mind. In fact, it makes me respect her even more. We don’t tell Simon about that arrangement, though. He’d be mortified.) 

As a compromise I bought some rather nice noise cancelling headphones I put on whenever Simon has a session. For some reason that day I took them off while making tea, like the fool I am, and I couldn’t help but pick up on their conversation. Bits of it, at least.

“...ok to have desires, Simon...sex positive...” 

I froze. I couldn’t move. I know I should have put my headphones back on immediately, but I was weak. Our physical relationship had somewhat...stalled. 

Not stalled. It had died. The wheels came off. The engine was removed from the vehicle. 

“....it’s ok to want sex… ...Simon, you keep telling me about all the worst things that could happen, but what’s the _best_ thing that could happen?” 

I knew it was wrong to keep listening. I knew it even as I did it. 

C’mon, Simon, answer her. Tell her. Tell me. _What’s the best thing that could happen?_

“Well--I guess--” he was stammering. Of course he was. Any proper Brit would stammer when asked to talk about sex. “I guess the best thing that could happen is that we could have each other. We could, you know, be together. That I could have Baz whenever I wanted--and also--also that he could have me whenever _he_ wanted. I want that. I want _him_. He’s so scared, I’ve made him scared to touch me and--and I want him to touch me. I want him to have me whenever he wants me,” I could practically hear Simon blushing as he said it, feel the heat radiate off him. At that moment the kettle snapped off and I was startled back to the reality that I was using my heightened hearing to eavesdrop on a private conversation between my boyfriend and his therapist.

I’m a monster.

I’m a monster and I’d do it again. It was so lovely to hear. He wanted me. I hadn’t fed all day yet the blood still rose to my cheeks. He wanted me. 

He was right. I was scared. I was hesitant. He’d frozen up enough times that I’d stopped feeling confident. I started worrying that perhaps Simon realized he was snogging a bloke and wasn’t ok with it after all. I started to doubt myself, which made Simon get uncomfortable, which made me go silent and stony, which made Simon _more_ uncomfortable, which--- it was an ouroboros of sexual awkwardness. 

After that session Simon's confidence started to come back. He started to show me he wanted me, to try things, to let _me_ try things. He wasn’t always good about speaking the words out loud, which made for an awkward fumbling conversation around consent pretty early on, but we worked through it. 

Crowley, did we ever work through it. 

Simon Snow is not the most eloquent speaker, _but the things his mouth can do._

Simon is stirring on the bed beside me now, peeling his arm from where it lay across my back, glued there from our sweat. 

“Hey,” he rumbles, low and throaty. It does something deep inside me. 

“Hey yourself, Snow.” 

“I wasn’t trying to keep anything from you, you know, about my writing. I wasn’t trying to keep secrets--I just--I wanted to be sure,” he whispers into my shoulder as he turns towards me. I see the spell Penny cast on his wings and tail is starting to wear off. There’s a telltale shimmer in the air behind his back and he’s shifting to lie on his stomach. 

“You get to decide what to do with your own life. I fully support any decisions that make you happy, Simon,” I rub gently at his back as I say it, working the spot where his wings will reappear. He sighs a bit at the touch. I know having his wings spelled away for too long can sometimes make his shoulders ache. I press harder and he gives a contented little groan.

“It’s just--I feel guilty, Baz. This isn’t something practical to study. I don’t know what I’ll do after Uni,” he sighs. 

“Well, what would you like to do, love? In an ideal situation.” 

“Keep writing. Be a writer,” his tone is deeply remorseful, as if he’s admitted the most shameful desire.

“What’s wrong with being a writer?” I ask. Simon snorts into my arm. I try to ignore the fact that he very definitely just sprayed some snot or spit onto me. 

“We’ll be skint,” he says, as if I’m ridiculous for not realizing. 

Money? Is this really his biggest concern? I shift so I can hook my arms beneath his and hoist him up and onto me until he’s laying flush against my body. He groans a little and I can’t tell if it’s a good or bad sound. 

“You beautiful idiot,” I say, kissing his eyebrows. 

“I’m not an idiot, Baz,” he whines. “Y’know, I went into All Saints and looked for those jeans you wear. £130! For a pair of fucking jeans! Baz, I can’t afford that if I’m a writer.”

“Why were you in All Saints looking for my jeans, Snow?” I smirk at him. I know why, but I ask anyway, because I still like to torment him a little bit. Every part of Simon is blushing and it’s delicious. 

“Because, you twat, you look incredible in them and I thought I might buy you another pair for Christmas. But I can’t fucking do that when they’re £130, now can I?!” His brow is furrowed and it’s the most adorable thing I’ve ever seen. I stretch up to kiss him there.

“Simon, you do know I’m…” how do I phrase this delicately, tastefully? “Simon, money will not be a problem for us. I can support us both. Neither of us really needs to work unless we want to.” 

It’s an uncomfortable conversation to have: money. It’s up there with sex under the list of things Brits don’t want to talk about. Sex, money, and how Arsenal always choke under pressure. Always.

“But I _want_ to work, Baz. I want to make my own money. Maybe do something that feels like it matters,” his voice is soft. Of course he wants to work, my sweet, kindhearted Simon. Of course he wants to do something that matters. He always did. If anything he’s doubled down on that desire since the Humdrum incident. Perhaps it’s out of some misplaced feeling that he needs to make it up to the world. He still thinks he was the villain in that scenario. I’m not so sure anymore. 

We lay together for a while in the quiet. I rub Simon’s warm back, waiting for his wings to appear.

“Snow, there’s a long history of those with means serving as patrons of the arts. Those with wealth and standing would sometimes financially support an artist whose work they believed in and in turn have access to their art and be able to show them off in their circle.”

“Well, thanks for the history lesson, Professor Pitch. What the fuck does that have to do with anything?”

“Well, I’ve always thought I’d make an excellent benevolent benefactor,” I say and he snarls in my ear and attempts to push himself away. I hold him tight, laughing into his hair.

“Snow, you should seriously consider my offer to act as your rakishly handsome, generous patron. All I ask in return are certain...favors,” I say, wrapping my legs around his waist and licking his ear, covering it with saliva. I feel his laughter reverberate through my chest.

“Disgusting, Baz!” 

“We don’t kink-shame in this household, Snow, you know that. Now let me lick your ear and I’ll give you a tenner to write a sonnet about it,” I stick my tongue out at him, waggle it near his face. He’s trying to push me away but only manages to give me unfettered access to his palms, which I settle for and lick enthusiastically.

“Fuck you, Baz!” he tries to snarl through his laughter, wiping his spit slicked fingers off on my face. I don’t mind. I’m disturbed. Ask anyone. 

(Ask Simon.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ode to an Ear-Licker  
> (A Sonnet in Iambic Pentameter)  
> By Simon Snow
> 
> My love, Tyrannus Basilton Grimm-Pitch  
> Licks and slobbers grotesquely at my ear.  
> He thinks because he is insanely rich  
> He can do it and I'll write like Shakespeare.  
> In truth! I would let him lick me for free  
> Because he is ridiculously fit.  
> Too bad it is so clear for all to see  
> He's also an obnoxious little shit.  
> He probably thinks I am a dumb thing  
> Too thick to write a poem like this that well  
> Something something something something something.  
> Basilton Pitch you can go right to hell.  
> But we had a deal. My ear you did lick.  
> How much money for you to suck my...
> 
> (too far?)


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Long weekends are for talking about poetry, checking Baz's ego, rolling up our sleeves (and unbuttoning our shirts a lil bit) to wax lyrical about The Classics, and listening to some choice Penelope Bunce feminist rants.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Our fearsome trio have some drinky drinks and might get a lil tipsy. Heads up.

**Simon**

“Why poetry, Simon?” Baz asks as we stumble through making breakfast together in the kitchen. My eyes aren’t quite open and adjusted to the day yet. We were up late. Together. Doing up-late-together things. 

“You have to promise you won’t laugh,” I ask. I need his reassurance. You don’t just undo seven years of verbal torture from someone overnight, even if you trust that person completely and would do anything for them. 

“I promise, Simon,” and I know he means what he says because he calls me Simon. 

“So, I was watching this inspirational tv show. With Maya Angelou,” I watch him out of the corner of my eye to make sure he keeps his promise. 

There is a slight quiver of his lip, but I choose to let it go. “Something she said made me think of you.”

“What was that?” Baz acts cool, as if he’s not desperately interested. He’s suddenly extremely focused on folding the omelette he’s making. As if he couldn’t do it one handed with his eyes closed, the graceful prick. 

“Something about how when someone shows you who they really are you should believe them. I liked that. It made me think of when you stopped me from killing that dragon in 8th year. I think you showed me who you really are that day.” 

Baz is smiling, just the tiniest little bit at the corner of his mouth. It’s barely even there. You’d have to look closely to see it. 

“And who am I really, Snow?” he asks. Shaking his hair out of his eyes.

“Baz, your ego is already big enough,” I laugh, pouring milk into our tea. “Anyway, I was telling you about poetry. Let me finish a thought,” he smirks and nods for me to continue. 

“She talked a little about her childhood. And she had--she had a lot of childhood trauma. She didn’t talk for five years because she thought her words killed someone,” it hangs in the air longer than it should. I know we’re both thinking the same thing: my words really did kill someone. And if you count all those magical creatures (which we should) I killed many someones. 

Baz’s whole body is tense and unmoving. I need to push us past this. 

“I guess I kinda related to the way writing helped her process her trauma.” 

Baz nods, his mouth a tight line. He’s still too serious, so I nudge him in the side as he transfers our food to two plates. It makes him nearly spill some on the floor, which I like. I like when Baz makes mistakes. It levels the playing field. It humanizes him. 

“I guess I always thought poetry had to be some twee, rhyming twaddle. I guess I didn’t realize it could be angry. Or sad. Or mean. Or make me actually feel things,” I say, grabbing the butter dish and some utensils from the drawer. We have our routines in the kitchen pretty well mapped out. We know who does what. Baz does most of the cooking because he’s better at following recipes and seeing them through correctly. I set our places, do whatever little tasks won’t fuck up his work, and handle the washing up afterwards. It’s a nice dance. 

“So Maya Angelou makes you feel things. Who else?” Baz says, moving to sit at our uncomfortably tiny table. I don’t know why he puts up with our flat. I don’t know why he doesn’t insist on us going over to his. 

Yes I do. _Fiona_. 

“Well, from Maya I went to Audre Lorde. And Audre Lorde led me to--um--to queer poets,” I feel myself blush. We still don’t talk about my identity. Whether I’m gay or bisexual or pansexual or whatever. But I think I can use the word queer. I think it’s mine to use. I know I want it to be. “I read some Ginsberg, he was a bit weird, but I liked it. Myles was excellent. Whitman, O’Hara, Baldwin. I’m trying to read some older poetry now, though. I’ve been reading Emily Dickinson. Have you heard of her?” 

**Baz**

Simon Snow just asked if I’ve heard of Emily Dickinson. 

“Yes,” I respond quietly, trying to calmly sip my tea and hide the smile I know is playing at my mouth. “I believe I’ve heard of Emily Dickinson before.” 

“Everyone’s heard of Emily Dickinson,” Penny says matter-of-factly as she enters the kitchen and starts banging around in the cupboards. I watch as Simon’s ears turn red and I shoot Penny a glare so fierce and hard I hope it makes her choke. 

Not to death. Just a little choke. Enough to make her shut up for a minute. 

“What, _Basilton_?!” she exclaims, glaring back at me and throwing a tea bag into her mug roughly. “Everyone does! She’s like one of the most famo--” I cut her off. 

“Simon was just asking _me_ if _I’d_ heard of Emily Dickinson. I believe he is excited to speak with his _boyfriend_ about the poetry he likes. Perhaps he doesn’t need to be talked down to by Penelope Bunce, Supreme Know-It-All.”

Penelope smiles. 

“Crowley, that wasn’t a compliment, Bunce,” she’s utterly ridiculous. There’s a pen hanging from her bun. Not tucked into it, just hanging there, barely holding onto a few strands of hair. Clearly she slept that way. 

“Of course it was a compliment, Baz. And Simon, it’s a fact that everyone knows about Emily Dickinson. Unlike your boyfriend _I_ don’t think you need to be patronized. That’s not how _our_ relationship works,” she spins and gives me a look that I think is supposed to be withering, but the pen hanging from her hair swings around and smacks her in the face. 

“Alright, alright, you both care about me. I get it,” Simon laughs through his mouth full of breakfast. “At some point you’ll have to sit me down and tell me who else everyone has heard of so I don’t embarrass myself at Uni.”

“Impossible. You’re a constant embarrassment,” I say, reaching out to wipe a bit of stray toast crumb from the corner of Simon’s mouth. “The absolute worst.” 

He bares his teeth at me and shoves the rest of his toast in his mouth before talking around it, crumbs flying. “You love it.”

“Regrettably, Snow, I do.” 

  
  


**Penny**

Giving Simon Snow a crash course in literature was not exactly how I expected to spend our long bank holiday weekend. Granted, it’s only Friday night, but I thought we might do something relaxing. Or something reckless and fun that only 19/20 year olds who have survived nearly apocalyptic traumas deserve. Not...this. 

But I’m loving it. It’s wonderful. It’s kind of everything I hoped Uni would be. Late nights passionately discussing philosophy, science, and art. For a while there it looked like we’d never have this. Like it was somehow completely out of reach. The best we could hope for was survival, but instead here we are. An unlikely trio. Up too late drinking and shouting about books. 

We’re deciding on a list of books Simon absolutely has to read in order to be culturally literate for his program. It’s going about as well as you’d expect.

“It’s a classic, Bunce!” Baz practically growls. He’s standing before us, his shirt is unbuttoned far too low and he’s pushed his sleeves up above his elbows. He looks mental. Manic. Which is ironic considering we’re locked in an argument over which book Simon should read first, _Jane Eyre_ or _Wide Sargasso Sea_. 

“Sure, if you define ‘classic’ as colonialist, anti-feminist, bullshit that perpetuates outdated stereotypes about mental health!” I shout. “He keeps his _wife_ locked in an _attic_!”

“I’m beginning to think Rochester was on to something!” Baz spits back at me. 

“Did you just threaten to lock me in an attic, _Basilton_?” I cross my arms in front of me, daring him to continue. 

“If the Madwoman in the Attic trope fits, _Bunce_ ,” he crosses his arms right back at me and hits me with that single raised eyebrow of his. 

“Your eyebrow doesn’t work on me,” I say, waving my hand at his face. He snarls, trying to show me where his fangs should be? I don’t know. I stick my tongue out at him. We’ve devolved to total immaturity. 

Perhaps we’re all a little tipsy. There are several bottles, cans, and empty glasses on the coffee table among the bags of snacks and tumbling mountains of books. 

“Look, Basil, he reads _Wide Sargasso Sea_ first and can use sparknotes to learn about _Jane Eyre_. I’m calling it! I’m using one of my overrides!” 

“Fine, Bunce,” Baz huffs, sitting back down on the sofa next to Simon. 

When this night started we brought out the whiteboard from my room (it helps me stay organized) and set it up in the living room so we could make our list. Simon rolled his eyes and said it would be easier to do on his laptop but Baz and I were (for the last time this evening) in complete agreement that a list on a laptop lacks style. Simon protested that he could email it to himself and then he’d always have the list on him when he went to the library or bookstores, but Baz and I were already arguing over who got the marker first by that point.

Baz and I agreed we should each have 5 overrides we could use throughout the night, to bump something onto or off of the list. I’d already used 4 of mine. I had to. Baz is such a stuffy traditionalist. Though he did suggest a surprising number of female authors. I’ll give him that. 

I add my book to the list and watch from the corner of my eye as Baz scrapes his hair up into a quick, messy bun at the back of his head. Simon is eyeing him intently, unconsciously licking his lips. I still don’t know how I didn’t put it together back at Watford. 

“Shall I clear the room so you two can have at it on the sofa?” I snort, sipping my drink. 

“That would be lovely, Bunce, yes please,” Baz answers, making eyes at Simon while running a hand along his neck. Simon is leaning into his touch and humming. I hate these horny bastards so much sometimes. 

“How about _Interview with the Vampire_?” I suggest sweetly. Baz shoots me what he thinks is a discouraging glare. It only encourages me. “Not sure though, is that one fiction or nonfiction, Baz?” 

“ _Interview with the Vampire_?” Simon says from the sofa. “Isn’t that the film with the two fit blokes and the bratty little girl?” 

“Hmm, sounds like it might be autobiographical then,” Baz says to me, cocking his head to the side. 

Bratty little girl? Me? Sure. I’ll take it. Not sure the last time someone called me “little” though. 

We’re still sharp and shitty to one another, but it’s lost all its sting. It’s all for play. I know Baz is as soft as they come and he knows I will stake him through the heart if he ever hurts Simon, so we’ve reached a nice equilibrium. 

We go on suggesting books, getting riled up about them and yelling late into the night. I cast some noise cancelling spells early in the evening so the neighbors won’t complain. Baz keeps reminding us to drink water and eat snacks as we go so we don’t end up too messy and drunk. 

Baz and Simon move closer to one another over the course of the evening. Baz keeps standing to deliver these long tirades about The Classics but I think he’s really using them as an excuse to sit down closer to Simon each time he’s done. He’s practically in his lap now and keeps reaching over to play with Simon’s hair while he talks. 

“I think--I think--I want--” Simon starts, eyes closed and nuzzling into Baz’s shoulder. Nicks and Slick, where’s this going? Did he forget I’m even here? Typical. 

I clear my throat dramatically before I see or hear something that can’t be unseen or unheard.

“I think I want to read you a poem. My poem. Something I wrote,” Simon stammers, flushing as he says it. Baz looks like he’s just been told he won a million pounds. (Which probably wouldn’t be that big a deal to him now that I think about it. Fucking Old Families.) 

“Yeah. Let’s figure out if you’re any good at this,” I say. I realize I’m squinting one eye as I look at him. I’m cutting myself off. That’s enough alcohol for the night. 

Simon gets up from the sofa and trots back to his room. 

Suddenly Baz is in my face. He looks and sounds stone cold sober. 

“Bunce, you need to promise me whether this poem is brilliant or shit you’re going to heap praise on Simon like it’s the most beautiful thing you’ve ever fucking heard,” Baz hisses at me. 

“I’m not going to lie to him, Baz. Our dishonesty will only hurt him deeper down the line. You think his classmates will go easy on him?” I counter. 

“I don’t think anyone's ever gone easy on him. Including me. But he loves this. He wants to do this and we’re not going to shit on it!”

I get it. Baz wants to wrap Simon in a protective little bubble, I used to want to do the same thing. But the world sucks. We’ve experienced the full brunt of how much the World of Mages sucks and now we’re venturing out into the Normal World to determine how much it sucks too. 

“Baz, if his writing is shit then his classmates will tear him apart. Telling the truth now will be kinder. It’s the right thing to do, and you know it.”

“ _Penelope_ ,” Baz says warningly, but I remain steadfast in my resolve.

Simon returns, grinning ridiculously, saving us from a bust-up over which of us best knows how to parent Simon Snow.

“Alright. You choose,” he says, flopping down on the sofa with a notebook in his hands. Baz and I instinctively move to sit across from him. “Love, death, magic, or something else entirely?”

Baz says _love_ at the same time I say _magic_. 

“Something else entirely it is, then,” Simon laughs and I can’t help but feel like he knew what he wanted to read us all along. He flips straight to a poem. 

“Alright. This is titled _Car Boot Sale_ ,” he starts. Baz and I share a stealthy glance. Not much of a title, really. Rather pedestrian. 

Simon takes a deep breath. 

He licks his lips.

And then he breaks my heart in 3 stanzas or less. 

Great snakes. He's good at this. He’s actually bloody good at this.

**Baz**

He’s brilliant. I love him. I want to marry him. (Where did that come from?!)

The poem Simon reads is about his childhood. About spending all the pocket money he had buying a chipped ceramic goat figurine at a car boot sale and giving it to Ebb. Except like any good poem it’s not really about that. It’s about so much more. It’s about love, belonging, and being seen. It’s about broken things, both ceramic and human.

His writing is concise. He gets right to the point. He describes everything with an economy of language that demonstrates he knows just the right word and doesn't have to be showy by using something too flowery. (Like I would.) It doesn’t go on and on. (Like I do.) 

It’s good. It’s really really good. 

We sit in silence after he finishes. I’m astounded and hope Penny won’t say something awful, although I don’t think she will. 

“That was…” Penny starts and stops. “That was quite good, Simon.” 

I can’t stop staring at his face. At his mouth. Where the words came out. He’s been looking back and forth between us expectantly since he finished. 

“Bunce, cover your eyes,” I say as I tackle Simon against the back of the sofa and kiss him. He kisses me back, hard. His notebook is pressed between us, pages crumpled and I feel badly about that but also I don’t. I desperately need to have my mouth on Simon’s mouth right now. He tastes like cider and Twiglets and life itself. 

“Guys! Come on!” Penny’s voice sounds weary. 

I pull back, straighten out my shirt and Simon’s notebook and settle myself next to Penny again. 

“It wasn’t complete shite?” Simon asks quietly, eyes darting between Penny and myself.

“It was exceptional. _You_ are exceptional,” I say back. A smile blooms across his beautiful face. 

“Yeah, Simon. I think you made a good choice to study writing,” Penny says, rising to collect the empties that are on the table. 

“Admitting defeat on our list, Bunce?” I ask. She’s wobbling a bit as she moves to the recycling bin. 

“Just on pause for tonight, Basilton. I predict you’re about three seconds away from dragging Simon down the hall while snogging him senseless, right? So, I might as well get a start on the clean up.”

“Bunce, we’re not animals. We’ll help you clean,” I say, standing.

“And _then_ you’ll snog me senseless?” Simon asks. 

“Yes, dear. And then I’ll snog you senseless,” I laugh and Penny rolls her eyes. I remind myself to do something nice for Bunce soon. She puts up with a lot from us. She’s a good friend. 

Normally Bunce and I would use some spells to speed the cleaning process, but alcohol messes with magic and can make it unpredictable. Drunkenly slur one word in “ ** _a place for everything and everything in its place_ **” and you’ve magic’ed your empty wine glass into outer space. 

And I like these wine glasses. I bought them myself. Before that it was merlot in mugs around here. 

Simon sort of vibrates as we clean. I catch him smiling and sighing to himself. He looks content. Good. He deserves that. He deserves everything good in this terrible world.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Baz and Simon are terrible boyfriends: they give each other extremely thoughtful gifts, go on lovely dates, and publicly affirm one another. Terrible. Terrible boyfriends. The worst.
> 
> tw: some jerk shouts out "queers" at our sweet boys, but they handle it like the badasses they are

**Simon**

I’m laying on the bed reading when Baz gets home. I hear him kick off his shoes at the front door before he pads down the hall. 

He drops something heavy onto the bed beside me. Heavy enough to make the mattress sag. It’s two packages. He must have checked the post on his way up to the flat. 

Baz stands at the edge of the bed, looking at me expectantly. 

“Open them, Snow. They’re for you.” 

“Didn’t order anything. Can’t be for me,” I respond. He rolls his eyes. 

“I didn’t say you ordered them. I said they’re for you. It’s called a gift, you nightmare,” even though his words are cruel his voice and tone are soft. 

“It’s not my birthday for another few months, Baz,” I tease, pulling one of the boxes closer to me. It’s heavy.

“Just open the fucking boxes, Snow,” he’s crossed his arms across his chest and he’s sucking on his fangs, or at least where his fangs should be. They’re not popped. He’s nervous about something. 

I rip into the first one. 

“Stationery?” I ask, dumping notebooks of varying sizes, several boxes of nice pencils, some pens, and a few other small bits and bobs out onto the duvet. 

“Tools,” he says, nodding his head. “Tools for your writing. I figure you must be close to filling that notebook you keep stashed under your mattress. Speaking of, open the other box.”

He’s bought me enough notebooks and writing shit to keep me stocked for the next decade at least. It makes my heart thud heavy in my chest. I’m crap at receiving gifts. I guess it hasn’t happened often enough in my life that I got used to knowing what to do.

I rip open the other box. 

“Uh...thanks? It’s...It’s...” I don’t know what it is.

“It’s for your desk, Simon. To keep you organized,” he plunks the organizer down on my desk and shoves a couple of the new notebooks in the tall compartment, puts a pencil in a small square holder. I get it now. “This way you don’t have to hide your notebook under the mattress or bother me every time you can’t find something to write with.” 

“But the desk is yours, Baz,” I protest. He ignores me. He’s filling the organizer with pencils and pens. 

“It’s your room Simon. It’s your desk,” he continues to work, not looking at me. So I stand, move behind him and wrap my arms around his waist, my tail winds around his calf.

“That’s rubbish, Baz. This is _our_ room and you use the desk far more than I ever do,” I mumble into his shoulder. He knows I’m right, too. I can’t get comfortable at the desk unless my wings and tail are spelled away. 

“Well, then, consider it a gift for myself. Now I don’t have to help you find a pencil every time you lose yours,” he places his hands over mine, which are still holding him tightly around the waist. His cool fingers trace the ridges and bumps of my hands. 

“It’s a nice gift, Baz. Thank you,” I kiss his shoulder and he hums with satisfaction. Saying thank you can be hard for me. I’m working on showing how I feel, even though it isn’t easy. My therapist says I won’t regret being earnest with the people I love. And I love Baz so much. So I say it again. 

“Baz, thank you for the gift. It means a lot to me.”

“Get your notebook from under the mattress, then,” Baz says, squeezing my hands once and moving away. I hesitate for a moment. 

“I promise to respect your privacy, Simon. I won’t ever read what’s in there without your permission. Keep it in the open, don’t hide it,” Baz nods his head towards the mattress again. To where I hide my writing.

“Huh. I feel like my therapist might have something to say about the fact I’ve kept it hidden under the mattress for so long,” I say, retrieving my notebook and plunking it down in the organizer Baz bought. 

“Probably,” he laughs as he sits on the bed, but it’s a kind laugh. 

* * *

“How has your week been, Simon?” my therapist asks. 

“Good--alright--good,” I stammer. Sometimes it’s hard to know where to start. I spin my pencil in my fingers, nervous habit. “I--er--I’ve been keeping to a good schedule. It even feels good when I get to break the schedule every now and again, stay up too late. I like that I can do that. I like that I’m in a place where I can handle that now. Or have a drink. I mean--like, not a lot. It’s just...it’s nice to stay up with Baz and Penny and have a few drinks and not pay for it the next day by feeling sad and out of sorts.”

My therapist is nodding her head. Every now and then she’ll pause and make notes. I can hear her pen click over Skype. 

“Speaking of Baz, how are things with him? I know the last time we talked you said a goal of yours was to think more about your identity.”

“Things are good...he’s...he’s so good. He’s a good boyfriend. He bought me some notebooks and shit for me to use for my writing,” she nods and smiles. I like that she’s ok with my language. She never makes me feel bad for the way I talk. “I--umm--he said he didn’t want me to hide my writing notebook under the bed anymore. That made me think maybe there’s something more there. Like the fact I’m hiding it means something.”

“What do _you_ think it means, Simon?” I hear her pen click. 

“I mean, I write a lot about what happened. About my life before. Magic, Watford, Ebb, the--the Mage,” I still find it hard to talk about him. What he did to me. How fucked up it all was. She knows. She doesn’t push. “I think maybe I still want to hide from it in a lot of ways.” 

There’s a long pause. I guess maybe she wants me to continue? Sometimes I worry I’m doing therapy wrong. Too many long pauses.

“Do you think of your poetry as a part of your processing or are they two separate things?” she asks, kindly. 

“Umm--I guess they started as the same thing, but maybe now they’re not. I’ve been writing about nicer things. Things that make me happy. Sometimes Baz. Sometimes Penny. Sometimes just...stuff that makes me feel good.”

“Well you said Baz bought you new notebooks, yes? Maybe it’s time to retire the old notebook and start some new ones. You can have one for processing your trauma and one for your poetry.”

I nod. That sounds reasonable. 

“And Simon? You can still hide your processing notebook. It’s about what you need, not what anyone else wants. Remember that? Prioritize yourself and what you need, even if it might seem strange to someone else. Prioritize yourself and what you need.” 

“Prioritize myself,” I repeat. She does this a lot, repeats a simple phrase she wants me to hold onto and remember. I take my pencil and write it down in my therapy notebook. So many notebooks. 

“Prioritize yourself and you’ll be better able to be there for others,” she affirms. I nod along then doodle a little bit in my notebook margins. I realize I’m drawing dragon wings. 

“Did you want to talk about identity and sexuality, Simon? We don’t have to if you don’t want to.”

“No--I--I want to,” I’m telling the truth. I just don’t know where to start. I didn’t know anyone like me growing up. Anyone queer. I guess I knew Baz, but I feel like that doesn’t count. We were so far in the closet it took a forest fire to flush us out.

“Remember, you don’t have to put a label on anything. You only need to take care of yourself. If you’re ok without a label, then that’s all that matters. You’re in charge,” she says warmly. 

“I’m bisexual,” I blurt out before she’s even finished talking. She nods. 

“I know that took a lot, Simon. I’m proud of you. And my previous statement still stands. If you decide you don’t want a label or that label no longer fits then you can change it. You’re in charge.”

I’m in charge. Doesn’t she know that’s part of the problem? I can barely pick out a new pair of trainers without having a panic attack. Although, I guess that’s getting better. 

“I’m in charge,” I say. I don’t write that one down in my notebook. I’d feel a little pathetic writing it down. But I say it a few times in my head. I’m in charge. I’m in charge.

“I know that makes you nervous, Simon. But it’s ok. Think of how far you’ve come. Think of everything you’ve accomplished.” 

I do. I flip back through my notes from our past therapy sessions. Almost a year’s worth of work. I’m proud of myself. I’m proud of how far I’ve come. 

I sit up a little straighter in my chair, square my shoulders. Stick out my chin.

I can do this. 

I’m in charge. 

**Baz**

He’s waiting for me outside my last class on Friday. It’s not our usual routine, but I like it. I like seeing him there, smiling at me through the crowd of my classmates all leaving the building. He’s leaning against a bike rack like his body was made for slouching. It’s an unseasonably warm day and he’s wearing dark denim and a white t-shirt with the sleeves rolled up, showing off his freckled arms. 

He’s had his hair cut. It looks good. It looks very good. 

It's cut short on the sides, in a fade, but he kept his curls on top. Thank Crowley he kept his curls on top. I want to get my hands in his hair immediately. Merlin and Morgana, he looks positively edible. He’s catching more than a few hungry looks from my classmates. 

Let them look, he’s all mine.

I adjust my satchel on my shoulder when I get to him, but it’s wasted effort, he manages to knock it loose when he wraps his arms around me and pulls me into a deep kiss. I make an embarrassing muffled noise that’s half in surprise and half delight.

“Was that alright?” he asks softly, pulling away. “I know you’re not one for public displays of affection.” 

He’s right. Simon has always been more open and affectionate. For someone who still doesn’t label his sexuality he’s extremely comfortable doing, in his words, “gay stuff” in public. I’ve always been the more buttoned up of the two of us. But for him I will cross every line. Even the reprehensible line of kissing in public.

I scratch at the shaved sides of his head with my nails. Simon closes his eyes and lets out a little pleased groan. He loves touch. Any touch. Sometimes I think he’s touch starved from a childhood spent in care. I want to give him all the touch he was missing and then some. And then a little more.

“I like this,” I say, tugging gently on a curl with one hand, still scratching at the stubble at the side of his head with the other. 

“Yeah?” Simon looks embarrassed. “I thought, maybe, I thought I should try something new.”

This time I instigate the kiss and Simon is the one making the embarrassing little noise in surprise. I like it. 

Someone passing by in a car shouts out at us, “QUEERS!”

Simon pulls away from me and for a moment my heart sinks. But he’s only pulled back so he can bellow “DAMN RIGHT!” before flipping the prick off with two fingers and returning to our kiss. I’m smiling into his mouth. My beautiful, reckless boyfriend. He’ll get our asses kicked someday. 

“Wait...did you just say ‘damn right’ when that jerk called us queer?” I pull back from Simon just a bit, stare him in the eye. He has a wicked grin on his face.

“Yup. I’m bi. That counts as queer, right?” he says, smiling back at me. I feel my jaw hang open a bit. Simon’s always been so hesitant to label his sexuality and here he is just...saying it. 

“Yes, you nightmare, that counts as queer,” I kiss him again. (I’m so weak.) My wonderful, terrible boyfriend has finally figured out he’s queer. I know he doesn’t need to label it, but it still feels so good to hear him say it. It feels like an affirmation. It feels like I’m not a mistake. 

Simon pulls my satchel over my head and deposits it on his shoulder to carry it for me. He does these sort of things all the time. Truly, Simon is a terrible boyfriend. (That idiot. He’s wonderful.)

“So, I was thinking about dinner,” Simon starts.

“You’re always thinking about dinner,” I bump my shoulder into his. 

“Right, but I am thinking about dinner _now_.” 

“It’s early,” I say, because it is. It’s only half four. 

“Yes,” he answers, his mouth fighting back a smile.

“What are you playing at, Snow?” he’s got something up his sleeve. I can tell. The haircut, meeting me after class, dinner. 

“Well…” he starts, sounding guilty. “There’s this poetry night at a bookstore in Shoreditch and I thought we might go together. After dinner.” 

“Simon Snow, are you asking me on a date?” I smirk at him. His face breaks into a wide grin. 

“Yes, I think I am,” I want to pull him into an alley and kiss him until he can’t breathe. I adore him too much. I wonder if this feeling will ever die down. Will I ever stop being completely overwhelmed by Simon Snow? Will my heart ever not feel like it’s going supernova in my chest when I’m around him? 

I sincerely hope not. I’d gladly go supernova for him. 

“Could I at least change first, Simon?” 

“You look fit as you are, Baz. You don’t need to change,” Simon has no chill because he leans back and eyes me up from behind as we walk. I can’t believe it took him this long to admit he’s queer.

“Cheers, love. That was subtle. I’d still like to wash my face and change though. When does this poetry night start, anyway?” 

“Starts at 8, but you have to get there before 7 to sign up if you want to perform.”

Perform. Simon wants to read some of his poetry. Live. In front of other people. In front of _me_. Why didn’t I put that together until now?

I squeeze his hand twice in mine. 

“We’ll get you there in time to sign up. Don’t worry, love.” 

He’s practically glowing as we walk home. 

* * *

Dinner was nice. Simon let me pick the restaurant, he always does. I’m still uncomfortable eating in front of other people. I have a list of places saved on my phone where the lighting is dark and the booths have high enough backs that I don’t have to worry about being spotted while I eat. 

Simon’s tugging me along the sidewalk with increased urgency, so we must be close. We’ll get to the bookstore with more than enough time for Simon to sign up to perform. I stop, pulling Simon to me, tucking us up against the wall of a closed shop. 

“Baz? What are you-- come on,” Simon begins to protest, but I take his face in both my hands, cupping them around his warm jaw. He doesn’t run as hot as he did back when he had all the world’s magic thrumming away in his guts, but the temperature differential is there. He’s still so warm and so alive. I run my thumbs over his chin and lips. 

“Simon, I have to say something first, before we go in. Please?” he nods. “I can’t imagine loving you more than I do right now, but I couldn’t imagine loving you more than I did last week, or the year before that, or fifth year. I adore you completely,” he’s blushing, but I’m far from finished. “I just know in my heart that after you read your poetry in this bookstore I’m going to love you even more and I’m jealous of that Baz. I’m jealous of me two hours into the future. And I feel sorry for me in the past. I feel sorry that I ever thought _that_ was love. You’re my Chosen One and I’ll keep choosing you every day as long as you’ll let me.”

“You bastard,” Simon practically growls, smiling and shaking his head. “You absolute bastard. It’s unfair to say beautiful romantic shit to me and then expect us to carry on as normal!”

“It’s the truth. If I wasn’t already dead I’d worry I was going to die from what’s about to happen. I think you’re going to make my heart explode with how much I love you and how proud I am of you,” I lean down and kiss him softly on the forehead. 

“Well, good thing you’re insistent you’re already dead,” Simon huffs. He’s beaming though. I can tell he’s pleased because he wraps his arm around my waist and pulls me tight as we continue to walk. His smile lights up the night.

“I love you, Simon, you nightmare.”

“I love you too, Baz. Come on, let me kill you with poetry in this bookstore.”

The shop is blessedly warm and there’s already a surprising number of people here. Although I don’t know why I’m surprised. It’s London. It’s a Friday. There’s enough people from any niche interest to get a solid gathering going. That’s the beauty of this city. 

“Simon!” A couple voices call from a group by the stage. I stare at Simon, quirking up an eyebrow. He squeezes my hand in response, pulling me along with him towards the smiling faces that are gesturing for us to join them. 

“Alright, Simon? Glad you made it,” a girl with blond hair dyed nearly white and a septum piercing leans out to grab Simon affectionately by the shoulder. For a moment I have a flash of Wellbelove-style jealousy. Blond hair. Touching Simon. My Simon. I briefly consider ripping her throat out and draining her dry. But Simon squeezes my hand and I let her live another day.

“Alright?” he says in response. “Alright, you lot?” he nods his head at the rest of the group. Does he know all these people? He seems to, they work through a variety of pleasantries before the blond girl clears her throat and nudges Simon in the shoulder again. Too much touching. Draining her dry is still on the table.

“Who’s this?” she smiles and nods her head in my direction. 

“Oh! Shit! I’m rubbish. This is Baz. This is my _boyfriend_ , Baz. Baz, this is everyone,” he looks mortified and I’m hoping it’s because he forgot I was there and not because he’s introduced me as his boyfriend. 

I shake a few hands. Someone offers me a fist bump and Simon laughs as I return it. I know what a fist bump is, Simon Snow.

“Damn, my gaydar is _busted,_ ” the blond says, shaking her head. 

“Nah, only about half busted since I’m bi,” Simon laughs. Crowley, first he’s declaring it to me and now he’s sharing it with his poetry friends. Simon Snow, you have come so far. 

“How long have you two been together?” someone asks.

“Our entire lives,” Simon responds matter-of-factly. 

“Right, I’m going to need some elaboration on that,” someone laughs, handing Simon a clipboard so he can sign up to perform. 

I raise my hands in a show of innocence. 

“Snow will have to explain that statement. I was under the impression we’d just celebrated our first anniversary in December, but apparently he has other ideas,” I say as Simon finishes writing his name and gestures with the clipboard for the next person to sign up. 

“We grew up together. Roommates all through boarding school. So we’ve technically been together since we were 11 years old. I guess if you want to get all picky on the details then we’ve only been a couple for a year or so. But it feels much longer. Feels like a lifetime,” Simon says sweetly, wrapping his arm tightly around my waist and squeezing. I pull him closer by the shoulders, dropping a kiss on the side of his head. 

“Boarding school? I mean, that totally makes sense for him,” the blond says, thrusting her head in my direction. She seems like she’s a step away from looking me in the eye and shouting ‘ _eat the rich_ ’. “But you?” 

My stomach clenches. I wonder how Simon will get around this. I wonder if he’ll find it triggering.

“Charity case,” Simon offers. “Guess they thought I had some undiscovered talent or something,” it’s a smooth lie, though not altogether untrue.

“They were sure as shit right about the talent. Have you heard his poetry, Baz? It’s pure dead brilliant,” she nods emphatically. So do several other faces in the group.

“That’s Simon. He’s always been brilliant,” I say. Simon blushes. 

We make idle chat with the group for a while. I learn there are a couple students from Simon’s course, but mostly this group is made of regulars to poetry night that absorbed Simon after his first reading here. They really seem to adore him. I can’t blame them. There’s so much to adore. He’s clever, witty, and self-deprecating as he chats. 

After a while Simon makes his excuses and tugs on my hand, pulling me over to the poetry section of the bookstore. We sit on the floor together, our backs against the shelves, legs sprawled out in front of us. He pulls down volumes of poetry and [quietly](https://www.poemsearcher.com/images/poemsearcher/fe/fe834d5b72005e397e88f3871a08a5a0.jpeg) [reads](https://allpoetry.com/Mad-Girl's-Love-Song) his [favorites](https://poets.org/poem/poetry-insurgent-art-i-am-signaling-you-through-flames) to [me](https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/50478/a-glimpse). 

I was right. I think he’ll kill me tonight. The potential for a supernova is burning in my chest. I’ve never heard so many words from Simon Snow, and he’s yet to do what we came here for. Soon he’ll stand before the crowd and read something he wrote himself. I ache with the anticipation. 

Eventually we rejoin the group, taking seats before they’re all claimed. Someone from the bookstore welcomes everyone, walks us through how the night is going to work, and then writers are being called up one by one to read their poems. Some are good, some are absolutely terrible, and most are just sort of alright. 

Simon’s knee starts bouncing with nerves as the night goes on. I put my hand on his leg, give it a gentle squeeze and then Simon’s name is called. There are shouts from his friends. For Simon. My Simon. He blushes as he takes his place behind the microphone and I think if I had enough blood in me I’d be blushing too. Somehow knowing all these people I just met are rooting for him makes me feel reassured. Warm. 

I know Simon is brilliant. I meant it when I said he’s still my Chosen One. I hadn’t realized how nice it would feel to see others choosing him too. 

Simon opens his notebook to the page he’d marked. He takes a deep breath. 

“This is titled _Cedar and Bergamot_ ,” he says, his eyes fluttering to me for only a moment. Everything in me tightens, condenses. This is the first step in going supernova. 

His poem is about a long weekend when I went to visit my family. Simon stayed in London. It’s about him using my shampoo and soap to feel closer to me, because he missed me, even though I was only gone 3 days. That’s what it’s about. But it speaks to longing and want and need and a depth of love. Queer love. 

It’s unmistakably about queer love.

And it’s good. It’s so fucking good. His poems always are.

Everything in me coalesces down to one point and explodes out. I feel my heart go supernova. I’m done for. 

**Simon**

I watch Baz from the corner of my eye as I read. I hoped he might like this one. I hoped he might like to hear something about him. About what he means to me. To hear me say it in public. A declaration. 

He’s said before that some things should go poetically unsaid, but I think that’s tosh. Some things deserve to be said. Poetically. 

And I'm in charge. I can do this.

Maybe I was wrong though because his whole body seems tight. His expression is stony and still, but then his eyes squeeze shut for a moment and when they open his whole demeanor changes. His face breaks, cracks. He’s wide open now, smiling at me from his seat. The kind of wide, genuine smile he saves for when we’re alone. My heart slams against my ribs so loudly I’m surprised the crowd can’t hear it. Surely it must be louder than my voice. 

When I finish there is applause from the crowd and I see someone wipe at their eyes. I guess that’s good? I smile and thank everyone, then return to my seat. I take Baz’s hand in mine and whisper so quietly that only a vampire could hear.

“Was that alright?” 

“Simon Snow, you nightmare, it was more than alright and you fucking know it. I told you I’d feel sorry for Baz from two hours ago and I was correct. You killed me up there,” he whispers back, wrapping an arm around my shoulder and pulling me close to kiss the top of my head. I stay that way, leaned into him, for the rest of the night. I swear I can hear Baz’s heart beating in his chest. Or maybe it’s just mine echoing there.

When the night is over my poetry friends invite us out for drinks and even though I make our excuses Baz says he’d be happy to go. 

“You sure you don’t want to celebrate your triumph, Snow?” he says to me. 

“I’d rather do that at home, if it’s all the same to you, Baz,” I say quietly, wrapping my arm around his waist. “Anyway, you said I killed you. Best get you home so I can perform mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.” 

We hold each other’s hands the entire tube ride home. We don’t break contact until we’re back at the flat, and even then it’s only long enough to undress one another and scramble into bed. We lay there for what feels like hours, just breathing and gently touching each other's skin. It’s not the desperate rush of kissing and grabbing we usually have. It’s purposeful and reverent.

He asks me to read the poem to him again while we lay together. I do. I look in his eyes as I recite it. I know it by heart. His heart and mine.

I think I was right. Some things need to be poetically said. I’ll spend the rest of my life saying them to Baz, if he’ll let me. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to everyone who has been reading and leaving kind comments. <3
> 
> Next chapter will have Penny, I promise.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jellied eels. Beat poets. Self-care face masks. 
> 
> Simon proves, yet again, he's not an idiot, but those other two I'm not so sure about.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> These are three somewhat disjointed bits and pieces I really needed out of my head and onto a page. Plus, idiots. Always idiots. 
> 
> Thank you for indulging me. In a world gone mental it's cathartic to write some love, positivity, and kindness into existence. Thanks for all your kudos and comments. They're lovely. You're lovely.

**Baz**

I barely have the front door of the flat unlocked before I hear music, chatter, and the unmistakable crash of something metal hitting the floor. 

“Fucking, shitting, _fuck_!” Simon and Penny must be cooking. I don’t know what they’re cooking though because there is a cacophony of smells assaulting my senses. It’s delicious and revolting in equal measures.

“I told you the lid would be hot, Simon,” Penny says, fussing over him. “Give me your hand. **_Get well soon_**.” 

I join them in the kitchen and it’s absolute bedlam. All the hobs are going, the oven is on, there are takeaway containers littering the countertops, and the lid of a pot is laying on the floor. 

I still think everything will end in flames, but right now it’s the flames of a grease fire as Simon and Penny burn down our flat.

“Baz! You’re home!” Simon shouts, surprised at my sudden presence. He turns their music down. I swear, these two can handle more sensory input than is normal. Sometimes Simon will have the radio on, be running a video on his laptop, and also chatting to Penny. I think perhaps he misses the sensory overload of what his magic used to feel like. And having met the larger Bunce family, I think she was just born into chaos. 

“What are you two walking disasters doing?” I ask, picking up the lid that’s been left on the floor and depositing it in the sink. My fangs are already starting to pop, I can feel them sliding into place. A Pavlovian reaction to all the smells.

“Plotting,” Simon smirks. “We’ve been plotting, Baz.”

“Plotting?” I ask, lifting the lid of a pot. Potatoes boil away inside. 

“Yes, and it's been a refreshing change of pace from all those years Simon insisted you were plotting against him,” Penny laughs, stirring a pot. It looks like plain pasta. I can smell my favorite curry from the takeaway down the block, chips and cheese from the place that gets the proportions just the way I like them, and the udon soup I once told Simon makes me want to weep with how delicious it is. 

In fact, all the takeaway seems to be my favorites. Bunce and Simon's regular orders aren't here, this is all for me. It's everything _I_ like. After I figure out whatever this weird feast is I'll have to find a way to thank him for noticing. For remembering the things that make me happy. He's the worst terrible boyfriend in existence. But first I have to figure out what this is.

“What, exactly, are you plotting and should it make me scared or hungry?” I ask.

Bunce smiles at Simon and they share a long knowing look. Sometimes I worry they’ve figured out the secret of telepathy. They seem to know how to communicate without words. 

“Simon has been thinking,” Penny starts. “About your condition.” 

What?

“Baz, you don’t like eating in front of people, yeah? On account of your fangs?” Simon offers. His eyes are bright. They blaze with excitement.

“I’m aware, Simon. Go on.”

“Alright, well, the thing is, I don’t think it has to be like that. You don’t actually suck your food, right? Like, I’ve watched you eat. You chew.” 

“Yes…” I offer. Where is this going? I lean against the refrigerator, careful not to knock down any of the pieces of the magnetic poetry kit Penny bought Simon. It was a sweet gift, but it’s rarely used for sentiments poetic in nature. We mostly use it to write increasingly bizarre insults to one another. Simon filled in some blank tiles with our names and a few choice curses. My favorite from recent memory is:

_reaching_

_seeking enlightenment_

_a slow diamond epiphany_

_Baz is a twat_

I still don’t know which of them wrote it. 

“Alright. So you don’t suck your food, right? _And_ ,” Simon says, a glint in his eye. “ _And_ , your fangs don’t pop when you drink water. Or tea. I’ve watched. They don’t,” Simon is smiling and nodding at me like he’s cracked some secret code. His tail is swishing gently through the air behind him. A telltale sign he’s pleased with himself. 

“I’m sorry, love, I’m still not following. What does this have to do with the very strange meal you two are preparing?”

“He doesn’t think your fangs have to pop when you eat regular food,” Penny says, pulling a shepherd's pie out of the oven. “He thinks you can control it. We’re going to spend the night testing that theory.”

“You think...because my fangs don’t pop when I drink that they don’t have to pop when I eat...because…” my voice dies pathetically because my brain is short circuiting. It’s running to catch up to a thought and tripping over itself, which is very unlike me.

Simon is nodding like a loon. 

I find I can weirdly follow his logic. My fangs don’t pop when I drink anything other than blood. They never have. 

Is this? Can I? My brain still stumbles, grasping for purchase.

Simon worked this out? Of course he did. Simon's far more clever than he'll ever give himself credit for.

“So, what's all this?” I gesture around the kitchen. 

“We’re going to build up your tolerance. We’re going to start with food you hate, cuz that’ll probably be easier to keep your fangs in, right?” Simon enthusiastically pops the lid on a container of jellied eels and waves it in front of my face. I gag immediately. Anyone with sense would. “We’re gonna get you to practice keeping your fangs in with the stuff you don’t like. Then we’re going to work our way up through levels of blandness to food you actually properly like. We’re going to build up your tolerance to tasty food and pretty soon you can take me to that ice cream place that I’ve been wanting to go,” Simon beams at me. 

“Crowley, Simon is this all about that damn ice cream shop? I told you we’d go, I’ve just been busy!” I know this is about more than ice cream. Simon’s face is so earnest, so raw with excitement. He moves to me, takes my face in his hands and kisses my chin. His tail pets gently at my calf.

“Baz, this is about you getting to live a full life.”

“Afterlife!” Penny practically sings. She’s at the sink draining pasta. 

“Alright. Get changed. Put on eating clothes,” he takes me by the shoulders, shoving me out of the kitchen and towards his room. 

“Eating clothes? Nobody owns eating clothes except for you, Snow, you wreck,” I call back over my shoulder, but my heart’s not in it. I love him too much. Him and Bunce both. For all her bellowing of afterlife at me, I saw the smile on her face as Simon explained their plan. I see her. I see them both. Plotting against me. 

For me, actually. Plotting for me.

In the end I do change into something more comfortable. 

* * *

It’s a disaster. Nothing has worked. The jellied eels were a terrible mistake. Not only did my fangs not retract, but I was nearly sick on the floor from the taste and texture. Horrid. In fact, all my least favorite foods have been a disaster.

You’d never know from Bunce and Simon’s reactions, though. They’re giddy. Enthusiastic. Bunce has been beside herself with excitement throughout the entire process. At this moment I’m something to be solved. I’m an experiment, and Bunce loves an experiment. I half expected her to be tracking our progress on a spreadsheet. Neatly organized columns and rows delineating food with a corresponding measurement, in millimeters, of my fangs.

“You can do this, Basilton, we’ll just clear away the gross stuff and restart again with something bland. Take a break,” she says, eyeing me over her glasses.

I nod at her and retreat to Simon’s bedroom. 

I sit on the edge of his bed and hang my head in my hands. I really believed them. I believed their logic, I thought I could do this. I’m not so sure now. 

Simon has been so endlessly, boundlessly positive. The thought of letting him down sticks in my throat even worse than the eels.

There is a soft tap at the door. I straighten myself up before calling out that it’s open. 

Simon enters silently, sheepishly. He pulls out the desk chair and sits across from me, knocking our knees together. 

“Baz,” he sighs. 

“I know you want this to work, Simon, but I’m afraid this is proving to be yet another way I’ll disappoint you,” I say, unable to look him in the eye. 

“What?” Simon asks, incredulous. Before I know it he’s clamoring up onto the bed on top of me, knees braced on either side of my hips, pushing me gently backwards. “What are you on about? You don't disappoint me.”

He’s sitting astride my body now. I think I’d enjoy it if I weren't so deeply mired in self-pity. 

“Baz, you don’t disappoint me. Crowley! For someone so smart you sure are an idiot sometimes,” Simon shakes his head as he talks, like he can't believe he's saddled himself with such a fool. I laugh, but there’s no mirth behind it. 

Simon leans down slowly, rests his body weight on an elbow beside my head and gently brings his fingers to my lips. He grazes them, warm and heavy, over my mouth.

“I don’t think I can do this, Simon,” I whisper to him, to his fingertips. He takes the opportunity of me talking to slip his index finger gently inside my mouth to touch my teeth. It should feel strange, but it doesn’t. It feels comforting. 

“You know I think your fangs are cool, right Baz?” He says and I snort in response. They’re not cool. They’re anything but cool. 

He’s tracing one of my eyeteeth with his index finger, up and down. I want to pull his finger into my mouth and suck on it. I resist the urge. 

“No, really, Baz. They’re cool. They’re...more than cool. I like them. I like seeing them. I like seeing them pop,” he really hits the ‘p’ at the end of the word and it makes the muscles in my stomach twitch. I let him continue touching my teeth and talking at me. 

“Baz, do you hate my wings? My tail?” Simon asks, letting his tail trace up and down my hip. 

I roll my head to the side and Simon takes the hint to remove his finger from where it’s tracing my teeth. 

“Don’t be daft. You know I like every part of you, Simon.”

“Well, I feel the same way, Baz. I like every part of you. Fangs and all. Look, I don’t care if you ever figure this out. It doesn’t make a bit of difference to me. I just want you to be happy. And I thought maybe this might be something that would make you happy.”

His tail continues to trace up and down my thigh. It’s extremely distracting and oddly reassuring all at once. 

I look away from Simon and whisper. “I don’t think I have the self-control for this, Simon. I don’t think I can do it.” 

“Nonsense. You’re entirely made of self-control. Self-control and sarcasm,” I snort out a laugh. “No, really, Baz. I mean it. You have more self-control than anyone I've ever met. You always focus on your coursework, even when I’m trying desperately to distract you. _Desperately_. You never skive off lectures. You never once snogged or drained me at Watford, even though I know you wanted to do both. Crowley, Baz, _you’re a vampire who’s never tasted human blood_. If you think you lack self-control then you’re...you’re...an idiot.” 

He’s staring at me with such intensity I don’t think I can take it. I turn my face away, but he takes me gently by the chin and forces eye contact. “You’re Baz Pitch. You can do anything.”

The blue eyes that stare me down are nothing particularly special. His eyelashes are stubby. His tawny skin is fairly nondescript, not exceptionally smooth or without blemish. There’s nothing exceptional about his face as I look up at him, and yet there is everything exceptional about Simon Snow. And every single day I find him more attractive. He’s hard to look at, honestly. He glows. He’s incandescent. He burns me up inside. 

And if Simon Snow thinks I can do anything then I will dash myself against the rocks over and over again trying to prove him right. 

“Alright, Snow, since you’ve so much confidence in me. Let’s try again. But no more fucking eels,” I say. He lets go of my chin and kisses me, just once. It’s a small kiss, fairly chaste, but it still makes my heart ache and sing. They always do. 

We rejoin Bunce at the table. 

I pick up my fork and my fangs slide down into place expectantly. 

Come on, Basilton. You can do this. Simon believes in you. Bunce believes in you. You didn’t spend nearly half your life fighting back the urge to kiss Simon Snow only to have your self-control fail on you now. Come on. 

“Take a deep breath, Baz,” Simon whispers. He puts a hand on my knee and squeezes.

I pop my neck before breathing in slowly. I hold it deep in my lungs, trying to calm myself, before breathing out slowly. 

There is a single piece of boiled potato on my fork. Bland. Tasteless. Nothing. It’s nothing. 

I focus on retracting my fangs, on willing them back into my skull. My eyes are screwed so tightly shut I can see stars. 

And it happens. The twitch of my fangs receding. They retreat, infinitesimally. 

Simon’s grip tightens where he is holding my knee. He can tell something is happening. 

I focus harder and they slip further away until they are gone. 

He was right. Simon's always right these days.

I chew my bite before opening my eyes and smiling at Simon and Bunce. Their reactions are everything I expected. Bunce leans back and nods seriously, as if this was the only logical end to her experiments. Simon looks like he’ll explode with joy. He’s lept up from his chair and is triumphantly pumping his fists in the air, his wings shuddering behind him, tail swinging dramatically. 

“See?!” he practically crows. “S _ee_?! I told you! I knew you could do it. Baz, you are brilliant!"

Trust Simon Snow to figure this whole thing out and then call _me_ brilliant. Simon. My beautiful, brilliant Simon.

**Penny**

Simon has discovered American Beat poets and I think it might kill me. 

His head has been stuck in a thick book of awful American nonsense for days and he keeps emerging to quote something that barely makes sense as if it’s genius. 

“Pen, listen to this,” Simon starts from where he’s lying on the floor. Merlin, I can’t take it anymore. I cut him off immediately. 

“Nope. Simon. I love and respect you, but if you read me one more self-important white dude stringing together random words and profanity for dramatic effect I will spell you into your room and won’t let you out for a fortnight.” 

He blinks a moment before closing the book and setting it down on the ground. 

“They’re not a very inclusive group, are they?” he laughs, tugging at his hair. 

“Not in the least, Simon.” 

“Yeah, that Ferlinghetti sure could write though,” he gets up from the floor and stands with his back to me, gesturing at his wings. I like that he doesn’t even have to ask me to spell them away anymore. It’s second nature for us to care for one another. It always has been. 

“ ** _Hide and seek_** ,” I say, gesturing my ring hand towards him. It’s a new spell Baz and I have been working on together. It’ll spell Simon’s wings and tail away as long as he wants them gone. Then all he has to do is get Baz or I to cast a “ ** _What you seek is seeking you_** ,” and they’ll pop back out. 

Simon gives a little shiver as his wings recede before climbing onto the sofa and resting his head on my shoulder. 

“Kerouac and the Beat poets make me think about all those times we’d dream about taking a big American road trip. Getting in some ridiculously massive car and taking off across the country. Seeing everything and nothing,” he sighs and I reach up to pat his hair. 

“I think I had some devious notion that if I could get you out of the country and into America we could hide ourselves from our problems. From the war and the Humdrum and everything.” 

He hums and nods his head. 

“It’d still be fun to go, though. For ourselves, not as some desperate escape plan,” he says softly. “I think I’d still like to do it someday.”

“Look, if you’ll stop reading those awful Beat poets to me I’ll consider anything, Simon. I’d even consider letting Baz come along.”

“Oooh, Baz in America,” he croons. “Think of the sunscreen.”

“SPF 1000.” 

“We’d need the biggest car we could hire just for his wardrobe,” Simon laughs.

“He’d probably make us stop so he could drain a buffalo.”

“Aren’t they endangered?” 

“Aren’t what endangered?” Baz says entering the living room. He’s just out of the shower and I swear I can see the steam coming off his skin. There goes any chance I have of getting a shower tonight. He’s surely used up all the hot water.

Simon and I look at each other and laugh. Baz stands there confused and annoyed. He’s wearing some loungewear that I’m confident cost more than my entire wardrobe and he looks fashionably disheveled. How is that even a thing? I’d find it annoying except he’s really nice about going shopping with me and helping me pick out clothes I would never choose for myself, yet somehow always look great. Plus, he’s fantastically catty to any shop assistants who remark on my weight. I don’t need him to defend me, but still. 

“We’re just daydreaming about a road trip across the States,” Simon says, not lifting his head from my shoulder. I like that Baz isn’t intimidated by our friendship the way Agatha always was.

Agatha. I haven’t thought of her in ages. I wonder how she’s doing in California? I should text her.

Baz joins us on the sofa on the other side of me. I'm sandwiched between two lovesick morons. I wonder how long it'll last before I get chased from the living room.

“Oh. Thinking of a road trip to visit Wellbelove?” Baz asks. 

“Nah,” says Simon, and it surprises me. Huh. “Agatha can’t seem to be arsed to talk to us, so maybe we just let her be. She must be happy in her new life. I know I’m happy in mine.”

“So, not to Agatha’s. Where would we go, then?” Baz asks. 

“Anywhere. Doesn’t matter to me. Just get in a car and go,” Simon says dreamily. 

“I love your devil-may-care attitude, Jack Kerouac, but we’d have to plan it out. I’m not running out of petrol in some middle-of-nowhere town to be chased down by conservative bigots,” Baz says. 

“Yes, and as the only person of color in the room I also share those concerns,” I add. 

“Baz is part Egyptian, right Baz?” Simon asks, sitting up from my shoulder.

“Yeah, but he’s white passing,” I return.

“More like grey passing,” Simon smirks.

Baz huffs. “I’m sitting _right here_ , you two. Crowley.” 

Simon reaches around my back to ruffle Baz’s hair. Baz lets out another little annoyed noise before reaching to mess up Simon’s hair. They leave their arms draped over my shoulders and I feel their combined warmth and coolness seep into my skin. 

“I don’t have any plans for my summer holidays, yet,” I offer. 

“Nor I.”

“Nope. No plans yet.”

The three of us. America. We could do it. 

**Simon**

It’s been a really good day. I got good marks on an essay I worked hard on. My tutorial ended earlier than usual. I got to the tube just in time to pop right on. The corner on the way home that always smells of piss didn’t smell of anything today. I’m feeling good about life. Positive. 

I hear Baz and Penny chatting as I enter the flat. 

“I’m glad you’re both here,” I say, kicking off my shoes at the door. “I was thinking that maybe we could--” I round the corner and my words fade out. 

Baz and Penny stare back at me from the sofa. They look like two children caught out in a game they weren't supposed to play. They’re both in comfy lounging-around-the-flat clothes, with ridiculous blue face masks on their faces, and they’re drinking some sort of pale cocktail. Penny clearly has a hair treatment in her hair. So, I guess Baz finally broke down and begged her to let him do something with it. In fact, I bet all of this was his idea. It’s very him.

“It’s only just past three,” I scold, but I don’t really mean it. It makes my heart feel like it will swell to bursting to see them like this. 

“It’s never too early for self-care, Simon,” Penny says, raising her glass.

“Here here, Bunce!” Baz says emphatically, tapping his glass against hers before the two fall into giggles. How long have they been at this?

“Baz said we deserved a treat and I quite agree!” They clink their glasses together again, trying to control their giggles and smiles so their face masks don’t crack.

I flop down on the floor in front of the sofa on my side, staring up at them. Taking them both in.

I can’t imagine loving either of them more than I do right now, with their ridiculous masks on, drinking and laughing together. In this moment my life feels perfect, like all the bad things have been burned away. 

“You should join us, Simon! Baz bought enough of this posh face goop for all of us.” 

“It’s not posh, it’s Lush,” Baz rolls his eyes. 

“Whatever. Seems posh to me. I smell like lemon and grapefruit and it has mermm...murmmoo...what’s in it again, Baz?” 

“Murumuru butter. And no, Snow, not that kind of butter. You can’t eat it,” Baz smirks. 

“Smells like you could eat it,” Penny says, sniffing deeply. 

“I just want to lay here for a moment and look at you both, if that’s alright?” I smile at them from my spot on the floor. I can tell I’m grinning like an idiot.

Penny and Baz stare back at me confused. 

“Tough day, Simon?” Penny asks leaning off the sofa to pat my head. I lean into her touch. 

“Nope, good day,” I answer. 

“Then why are you laying on the ground staring at us?” Penny and Baz both look concerned.

“I just--haven't you--" I catch myself. Take a deep breath. "Aren’t you ever amazed we get this? We get to have _this!_?” I gesture around at them both, the flat. I’m trying to gesture at life itself. 

Baz smiles a little bit. “You mean an existence outside fighting monsters and a war we never signed up for?” Baz gets it.

“Yes! Existence! Life. We get to have a _life_ ,” I sit up in front of them, rest a hand on each of their knees and squeeze. 

“I mean, some of us get to have a life. Baz has whatever this is,” she waves her hand wildly, gesturing in Baz’s personal space. He rolls his eyes dramatically. These two are like an old married couple and I absolutely adore it.

“I’m serious, you two,” I squeeze their knees and knock them together to get their attention. “We got the chance to live! To carry on living. To have a normal life. Not _Normal_ , Penny, stop making that face. I mean we get to have _this_. It all--it all feels like too much sometimes. _And we get to have it_!”

Penny and Baz stare at me through my rant. They're quiet and still for a moment, before turning to look at one another. I guess they forgot they were wearing face masks, because as soon as they see one another’s ridiculous blue-smeared faces they start giggling. Penny snorts and that sets Baz off laughing even harder. A deep laugh that shakes his whole beautiful body.

They’re ridiculous. 

They’re ridiculous and I love them so much. I couldn’t love them more. My best friends. My strange and unexpected family. 

“You two are idiots,” I say. “My idiots.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading and for your kind comments. I don't think I'm quite done with these three idiots yet. I have a few other adventures and stories flitting around in my mind, so I'll probably revisit this world soon. 
> 
> Until then, be well.


End file.
